Josiah Swabey Josiah Swabey

First post: Oct 18, 2021 Latest post: Nov 8, 2021
Josiah's story starts long before he was ever conceived. In December of 2018, God told me I would have a daughter named Joy and a son named Josiah. At first, I though that was beautiful knowing that Josiah was one of the best kings in the Bible. The next day, God revealed why He chose that name for my future son. I was in New Zealand at this time as a voluntary staff member with Youth With A Mission. During lectures, we were talking about the importance of the meaning of our names. I felt a strong promoting to look up the meaning of Josiah. When I did, I was brought to tears. Josiah means "Jehovah has healed." In this moment, I knew it was God confirming that he had healed me of the ovarian cancer from when I was 25 and that I would have children. 


I continued to hang onto the promise of my future children as I was single and doing missions, always believing Joy would come first. In April of 2019 I met James. Neither of us had feelings for each other, but we had a strong prompting from the Lord that we were to get married. Neither of us hesitated and moved forward with the plan that we felt from God, and we got married in September of 2019. Right away, our marriage had challenges and we found out how different we were, but I continued to go to God and he always confirmed that I was where he wanted me. I will admit, many times I wanted to divorce James, especially before we had any children, so that we could both go on with our lives without any other complications. I often questioned why God called us together. As time went on, things got worse, but God always called me to stay. In March of 2020, God told me it was time to trust him and to no longer prevent pregnancy - that he was planning on bringing Josiah into existence in July. As scared as I was, I trusted God and went to be with James in England. In July, I became pregnant, just as God said, and I KNEW it was Josiah. 


At 3 months pregnant, I flew back to the US and challenges between James and I only increased, until I felt release from God. From that point on, James and I remained friends as I carried Josiah along. At 20 weeks, we found out he had Hypoplastic Left heart Syndrome. It was heart breaking news, but instantly I hung onto the believe that God would heal him, just as his name stated. I believed so strongly that at one point, the head of Cardiology at Childrens called me to make sure I understand his diagnosis since they all knew me as the mom who believed their child wouldn't need surgery. But God had other plans. On April 16th, Josiah was born and his heart was not healed - I was devastated. It was a long journey working through what I believed I heard from God and what I saw in reality. 


At 4 days old, Josiah had his first open heart surgery. He did so amazing and we were able to go home before his 1 month birthday, which they had never seen before. Things were challenging at home, to say the least, but we were making it through. Despite the feeding challenges, he was a joy and so fun to watch grow each day. On September 2nd, Josiah had his second open heart surgery. This surgery was one we looked forward to because it was a much more stable fix and meant we would get to live "normal" after this. We went home and things were better for a few weeks before they got challenging again. On October 6th, we brought Josiah in because he had became dehydrated from not eating well. By October 11th, Josiah had gone into heart failure. They were able to resuscitate him by putting him on medications and putting in a a breathing tube. It was one of the scariest moments as a parent, but I am grateful he is still with us. 


We don't know where his story will go from here. The doctors are currently unsure as to what caused the heart failure and we still do not know if he will recover or not. What I do know is that his story doesn't end here. No matter what happens, he will live on. Since this has all happened, God has given me a new perspective of death. He's given me insight into just how temporary death on this earth is and it has given me such peace. I am still believing for a miracle for Josiah's life, but am becoming more at peace with the thought of Josiah joining our Heavenly Father. 


Thank you for following Josiah's story and praying for us. We are so grateful for all of you!
With Love, Lisa and Josiah
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